Not P but Moby-Dick (54)

[Mark Kohut]

I think it means the mothers would love to lay their sailors down in the
bed where they ly with other sailors...

On Fri, Dec 15, 2023 at 3:37 PM Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I’m inclined to think that Ahab is saying that Moby-Dick in his deep dives
> has seen the resting place of sailors whose mothers miss them so badly they
> would give up their life to be with them.
>
> We in the modern day are very sensitive to the incestuous overtones of a
> mother “laying down” “by a sailor’s side” - imho - but I think he’s
> basically just saying they’d like to hang with their missing offspring,
> spend some time with them even if it meant drowning.
>
> If I’m right about that, then maybe the unclearness is also intentional -
> portraying Ahab as a master of hyperbole and rhetoric but not a clear
> thinker.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 14, 2023 at 12:32 AM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > From Chapter 70:
> >
> > Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a
> > sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them
> > down.
> >
> > What does "lay them down" mean here? I assume "them" refers to the
> sailors,
> > not the mothers themselves.
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>